


Vision of Family

by ilyena_sylph, Merfilly



Series: Reckoning [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Force Visions, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-16
Updated: 2016-11-16
Packaged: 2018-08-31 10:50:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8575456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilyena_sylph/pseuds/ilyena_sylph, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: In the new life they have for themselves, Reckoning's peace is broken by visions, visions that lead back to Tatooine, where both Anakin and Vader have so many issues to stir up.





	

Reckoning startled awake, his breathing harsh in the purified air, and he reached for his mask. He hadn't been asleep long... but he felt like there was sand stuck to him in areas he didn't even have anymore, blown against his skin, and hot, double-sun hot, despite the climate control of his chamber... and a barely-familiar voice he couldn't understand, on the wind. 

It was unsettling, and he wanted to walk, to have time to think. 

Elsewhere in their home, as the hideaway had become, Ahsoka felt the ripple of disturbance, and rose to go investigate. She was protective of Reckoning where his emotions were concerned, even as she more than let him pull his weight against the rogue Force users they found… and the slavers.

He was unsurprised when Ahsoka found him, and he reached out to rest his right hand on her shoulder, accepting her presence -- and mildly grateful that she had come so quickly. The Noghri padding silently behind him fell back a little more, and under the mask, his mouth quirked. They liked her, or that would never happen. 

She settled in beside him, letting him guide where they went. Nor did she press right away for answers; he had learned she was more given to quiet and patience than she ever had been for Skywalker. Instead, she just touched their growing bond, letting him know she would listen when he was ready to talk.

"I did not," he said, eventually, "miss having visions." 

She flinched. "I don't blame you there, Reckoning. At all. I mean, I appreciate not being dead because of that damnable world, but the insights and visions that I get because of what _she_ did to me… sometimes it's more than I can handle.

"That said… do you want to share, to see what we can do to try and reshape it favorably?"

He held on as she flinched, but lightly, supportively. 

"Sand," he answered, hissing hate all through the growled word, "everywhere. And wind, and twin-sun noon heat. A voice -- male, and I think I know it, but I couldn't understand the word..."

Ahsoka slipped her arm around his waist then, memories of Tatooine coming to mind, and knowing they'd be unpleasant memories of the man he'd been, no matter what. She never had found out why Skyguy had hated his homeworld so much.

"Hmm. Not much to go on for how it impacts you, but then, some of them don't give much."

"It wasn't... me. It was," he paused, now aware that that was certainly true, and moreover... "someone else's eyes. Someone else hearing the call..." 

He held her against his side, breathing, as her quiet patience and support washed through the bond between them. "Which makes me... uneasy." 

She narrowed her eyes as she looked at his face, gaze piercing the lenses as best she could. "What ties could draw you into someone else's perspective? And I get being uneasy, ori'vod. I really do." She pondered it, unconsciously reaching for the Force to touch the problem, but this one… so far… was not directly in her path of awareness.

"There shouldn't _be_ any," he growled in confused frustration. "Mother had no other children, I have no father..." 

That startled Ahsoka; he seemed to mean that literally. She didn't think humans had that capability. However, she moved forward, pondering the possibilities. "Maybe it is someone who merely has need of you? The Force reaching out to you to help the person? Yes, I know, it's a stretch. But that's part of how Kanan found his student. With true Force users in such small numbers, I would not be surprised."

"Need of _me_ ," Reckoning made a noise that was darkly amused and disdainful all at once... but... it was not impossible. "One thing that has lasted from Skywalker is my hatred for that planet and almost everything on it...

"But perhaps it is time I finally do what Skywalker promised himself he would when he was a child," he said thoughtfully. 

"What is that, and can I help?" Ahsoka asked him sincerely. After all, he aided her in her missions regularly, even if she had withdrawn from a more active role in the Rebellion as they shifted more and more to a political body in the aftermath of the Emperor's death. She would do whatever needed to keep her friend safe, support him, so that he never fell into the darkness that had crafted Vader's existence.

"Mmm... learn to use the Force -- though he had different words for it, then -- and return, when he was old enough, to free the slaves," Reckoning answered. "Not, I suspect, that there is anyone left alive who he was thinking of when he made that vow... but it is still worth doing." 

"So it is. Then again, you saw how badly I lost my temper when we ran into that band of slavers a month ago," Ahsoka said easily enough. "Tatooine… nothing happens there without the Hutts knowing it. Pretty sure Jabba is still in control of that arm of their clan.

"When do you want to go, and are we going to seek the person in your dream first, or tackle the slaving problem?"

Reckoning thought for a few moments, then shrugged. "The sooner it's begun, the sooner it's ended, we may as well go. As to which first... solving the second may lead to finding the first. 

"I wonder how much they've changed the calibration of the detonators, in thirty years." That was something to consider. If there had been a drastic change to the technology of the tracker/detonators since his memories of Skywalker's investigations... that could be messy. Well. they would simply have to acquire someone to free, then, wouldn't they? 

Ahsoka bared her teeth in anger at that technology, having seen it on other planets. She willingly associated with the Dathomiri, who had kept their males as little more than slaves, but their near-extinction had seen an end to that, mostly. She had seen the slavers of the Empire, taking non-humans off their worlds for service, and done what she could, when opportunity presented itself, to save them.

To be able to tackle it fully, with Reckoning? That sounded like something that was a suitable use of her skills and expertise.

"I'll see if Rex is going with us then, and we can go," she said easily enough.

Reckoning flicked his fingers in agreement, more than willing to have Rex along on this operation... and there was no doubt that the Noghri would be there, as they were ever with him. Building a true alliance with the maitrakhs and Dynasts had been an interesting process, but as they saw rapid healing of their world, somehow their loyalty became even greater, not lessened from the years of Imperial deceit. 

They were such an odd people, sometimes. 

Ahsoka squeezed at him with a Force hug on his skin, one of many ways she maintained actual contact with him, and went to roust her mate so they could get moving. If he didn't want to go, she would loan him her fighter so he could go check up on Gregor and Wolffe… but she was betting that despite the misery of Tatooine, he would choose to go with them.

+++

Reckoning was under no illusions -- unlike the naive child 'little Ani' had been -- that globally deactivating the implanted explosives would be enough to end the practice of slavery on Tatooine. He had seen too much of sentient nature to expect anything but a wave of bloodshed and other reprisals. And, in all likelihood, within a few months some of those he meant to now free would have enslaved others, in whatever fashion they found to use next. 

It was probably going to take a few cycles of what was about to ensue before they understood that he _meant_ the words -- put into five languages, and run through a synthesizer to obscure the source -- he intended to broadcast along with the signal, that slavery on Tatooine was to end. 

He did not care what other villainies and harm they committed against each other, but that... that one was ending. At least for his lifetime -- and by then, they might have lost the taste for it. 

He asked Ahsoka to be in Mos Espa, to listen for danger to younglings, to do what she could for them... and went across the sands with two Noghri to find a way into Jabba's Palace. That being, that had overseen so much evil for so long, had held so many in chains and enabled much more of it... he meant to see dead, either at his hand or his former slaves', but Jabba always had bounty hunters, people that would defend him. 

Not this time. Not ever again. 

The child, if it was still there, might be salvageable. 

Ahsoka wasn't so much turning a blind eye to his intentions as too distracted with the logistics needed to make certain the weakest, most disadvantaged, came through this fairly well, and had half-nodded at the request to listen for the children.

Rex eyed Reckoning shrewdly… and didn't say a word before they parted ways, with him to watch his Commander's six.

+++

Out in the deep desert, it took a long time to get news from the cities, such as they were, on the planet. However, the person in the desert wastelands was not unaware that the planet was changing. Death happening on a large scale, high emotions running the gamut from shock to wild jubilation rocked the Force.

More, there were whispers in the Force itself of power walking the deserts. The hermit had to meditate, try and discern the truth, so he would better be able to protect his ward.

+++

The voice, young but not a child's, called out to the stranger on the edge of a depression, the kind that some of the farmers built their upper homes into. Vaporators could be seen on the horizon, and then his attention was not on the stranger (someone known to the dreamer but not to Reckoning, it felt) but the garage building instead.

A garage that Reckoning knew, feeling that knowledge seep in like poison in his veins.

It threw him up and away from sleep, as too many of Skywalker's memories, none good, slammed through his soul. He knew where the boy was, the one he saw the world with while he slept. Getting to him meant going back somewhere Skywalker had sworn never to go again.

Ahsoka had felt the spike of emotion, kissed Rex's shoulder, and rolled off their bed to go settle just on the edge of Reckoning's, hating that he had to use the helmet when they weren't in their ship or home, where the air was carefully maintained to help him breathe properly. She wanted to see his face, to better be able to help him through this.

Once she was certain he was aware of her, her hand stole toward the original prosthetic one, fingers light on his in reassurance. She would never admit that she was afraid of losing him here, either to his mission against the slavers, or to the mystery the Force held for him. All she could do, instead of voicing the fear, was be where he could see and touch her, an anchor, if he chose to hold onto it, against the Darkness.

He shifted to his side, his hand catching on to hers with all of the strength it was safe to use, before he caught her full-body in the Force, held for a half-heartbeat, and then dragged her to where he could hold her against him. "Ahsoka," he whispered, mix of fury and hate and confused pain, burying his face high against a montral. 

She went willingly, letting him soothe himself by the contact, wrapping her own Force control around him, keeping that contact under the _beskar'gam_ against his skin. "I'm here, _ori'vod_. I am with you."

" _Ner'vod,_ " Reckoning murmured, holding her tight, pushing into that Force-hold on his skin below the armor, his breathing heavy and dark-rasping. "Mine. I. I know where the Force wants me to go -- and I don't know if I _can_." 

"Oh, Reckoning." She settled her hands on his arm around her, pressing back against him. "I will be at your side. Does that help you, or will that make it worse, wherever the place may be?"

"...I do not know," he answered, low, and tried to fight Skywalker's memories back into the box where they belonged. He was having precious little success, and part of him wanted to sink back into the Dark rather than deal with the memory-pain. " _Nor_ do I know why the boy is calling to me so! Owen was not Mother's!" 

Ahsoka twisted to better face him, though she carefully maintained Force and physical connections with him. "Maybe the Force knows you need family, and has given you that? You have been thriving in our _aliit_ , small as it is," she pointed out. "Or there is more at work we do not know yet."

Reckoning growled under his breath, holding her. "I do _not_ approve of its methods, in either case! Owen... must think Skywalker dead, and would have no love for any wielder of the Force!"

"Tough. If the kid's got it, he needs us, Reckoning," she told him, seriously. "I'd really rather we get him away from this dustball before the cockroach shows up poaching padawans again."

Reckoning snarled at the mention of Maul, hate flickering deep in his chest, and that... was a very valid point. "...as you say," he agreed aloud, still despising this idea, but slowly settling to the practicality of it. He would leave no child to possibly attract that filth's attentions. He did not have to admit to his past to deal with that the boy needed a teacher... Force, Ahsoka could deal with the negotiating over it. She was good with people. 

If he could just hold things together at being that close to his mother's grave, it would be fine. 

Ahsoka threw her full weight of loyalty to him, to their family, into their bond, and settled with him, not moving from his side until he was ready to get up and go actually deal with this.


End file.
